U.S. Mint has two-bit plan for slew of new quarters

You've been wanting new quarter coins for so long, it almost hurts, doesn't it?

But you didn't want to say anything, afraid to stand out. And you held that burning desire for a new kind of coin bottled up inside, the pressure mounting always. Because you thought you were the only American who studied both sides of a quarter before spending it.

And who wouldn't grow tired of barely five dozen different design quarters out there? Imagine, once the richest nation in the world, a country that could put a man on the moon, a country that will soon have a federal spending deficit the size of the moon -- a full one. And we can't afford new quarters for China to own?

If it isn't the old, familiar wing-flapping eagle, it's Utah or Montana or Delaware (which despite....

...its size is actually the same size as all the other quarters). And who could ever forget the bicentennial quarter?

Well, good news for everyone this week. The U.S. Mint, which makes a mint from collectors buying new coins way beyond face value, announced that it's coming out with a whole bunch of new different quarter designs in coming years.

There will be 56 new quarters, in fact.

They will commemorate a national park, forest or historic site in each state and then some.

A quarter won't even pay the federal tax on a gallon of gas now. And by the time they're done issuing these new coins -- in 2021 -- Joe Biden will still be talking about shovel-ready jobs saved and Sarah Palin will be in her second White House term.

Of course, by 2021, a quarter won't be worth a dime.

The designs have not yet been released because this is a transparent government. But the sites have. They'll begin early next year with Arkansas' Hot Springs National Park, then Wyoming's Yellowstone, California's Yosemite, Arizona's Grand Canyon and Oregon's Mount Hood National Forest and continue with new ones every two-to-three months ending with Alabama's Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.

But the Washington money bureaucracy has already invested Thomas Jefferson-knows-how-many hours in drawing up design rules and regulations. Can you imagine the contests and committee meetings yet to come at the state and then at the federal levels to sort through hundreds of designs for dozens of new coins?